I know what you are thinking food and being sedentary. What I really mean is, as you were gaining weight did you notice from the moment it started? Were you aware of the pounds, as they were increasing? Or were you more like me who was kind of oblivious? I feel like the pounds came slow and steady, but when I realized I was fat it felt like it happened over night as opposed to the slow climb it really was. So how did it happen for you?
Oh my goodness, I was painfully aware of every single pound and felt powerless to stop it.
It started when I weighed about 135 pounds just prior to my wedding, more than I'd weighed in college. We were getting married, so of course I did the typical "lose a few pounds" diet type thing. It didn't work. I started BCP's. I gained 10 pounds while dieting and exercising and got married at 145.
After that, of course I slacked off. The weight just piled on in excess to the "slacking" off I did. I gained about 40 pounds in the first year and it just kept coming with two babies.
I swear BCP's triggered PCOS in me. I think it messed with the delicate nature of my hormones. I also didn't understand just how active I had been walking the college campus.
So yes, for me it was PCOS, eating the wrong things and moving too little. I had moments where I tried to accept myself. That never worked. But I was never oblivious. I wished I could have been oblivious!
I'd always been a BIT heavier than most, but carried it very well. When I lived at home I at least had other people in the house so I didn't go insane on the food, and my dad would always get me out walking. When I was about 19 or 20 I moved out on my own and then all **** broke loose. I was literally a spoiled brat of a kid loose in a candy store!! I swear I went from about 180 to 250 in 2 years. After I met my future DH, and he liked me the way I was, I really had no motivation to do much about it, packed on another 50 or 60 pounds over the course of 10 years. Insane!
Once I beat that little snot of an inner child into submission, things turned around
I watched mine pile on the whole time, and I knew it was piling on, but damn, did I think I looked good!! WTH!?!?! I thought I carried it well, and that the pictures taken of me were taken from just awful angles, so I thought I looked a lot less than what I actually weighed.
My weight gain happened between 2001-2006 when I packed on over 100 pounds. It was spread out over the course of 5 years, so it was a steady weight gain. But, it only took one time sitting down in my car in my highest-sized pair of jeans and having them cut into my skin because they were getting too tight for me to realize, "Dang...I. Am. Fat."
So for me it was a few things… and yes lazy was most definitely a part of it. However, a lot of it started when I gave up riding/showing horses. That was a lot of exercise I got in that offset my mostly horrible diet. I have always been “hungry” and ate too much. I was slightly overweight in high school, but wasn’t that concerned about it. I was about the same starting off college, and then when I gave up horses (just couldn’t afford them anymore) I started gaining weight a lot faster. I didn’t worry about what I ate, I was broke so in a college town the cheapest thing is mac & cheese and pizza. 3 2-topping pizzas for $9.99 + tip made it a popular food for college students to split. When I gave up horses I took up video games. Since then I found I really do like video games. Which is fine… unless I sit at a desk all day, play video games all evening, and live on the drive through, and then it’s not so fine. Add Depo to that and add mild undiagnosed depression + a higher rate of weight gain. Add in my favorite grandmothers death and my mother going through a triple bi-pass. THEN I took control! I lost 70 lbs. I was a woman on a mission. I got of depo, I busted my *** every day, I started to love exercise. Then I got a promotion… that wasn’t the promotion I expected. I was miserable. I would be called at all hours and told how I needed to give up my life, and how being anywhere at anytime without my phone was unacceptable. When on call we wouldn’t get any sleep because our phones would go berserk. NO one wanted to train me, but they expected me to know everything. For the first time in my entire life I was getting horrid reviews. I quit exercising. I went back to living through the drive through and eating out. I became really depressed, and didn’t know it. I gained it all back + 20 – 30. I went to my Dr because I never felt good and found out my health (which had never had any problems whatsoever before) had started declining. My normal bloodwork wasn’t so normal. I had high BP and she more or less wanted to send me to a bariatric surgeon. It scared the crap out of me that I’d gotten that out of control.
SOOO here I am and that’s how I gained the weight. Most of it was a lifestyle change that wasn’t for the better, laziness, excuses, and completely ignoring what was right in front of me. I also have a fiancé who loves me EXACTLY as I am. His favorite phrase is I love you how you are and however you want to be. It doesn’t help the motivation, but it’s a quality I love about him.
So far I’ve lost 55 lbs.. and now I’m on a mission to lose another 100. It’s slow going, but I’m trying to stay conscious about allll the things that got me to the 310 mark to begin with.
I lived at our summer property in beautiful BC and had Bailey's in my coffee every morning, drank beer and coolers all afternoon while out boating. I ate a Costco size bag of Ruffles EVERY weekend. I ate BBQ burgers, hotdogs, potato salad ~ like I said ~ living the dream!
It caught up. I gained 20 pounds from May to September of last year. I never noticed as I was living in a swimsuit and "camping clothes". Nothing but yoga pants fit me. I was shocked when I jumped on the scale in September. I have a closet full of fantastic clothes from a shopping spree in Vegas last May. It sucks. But, I'm winning!
Mine felt like it happened over night. I gave birth to my son in august 2007, and the following may, i wanted to wear something nice for my birthday and i realised i was still wearing alot of my maternity clothes. I went shopping for something new, and realised that the size i thought i was was actually 3 sizes too small. it was like a slap in the face, how had i not seen it? how had i not noticed? why didnt anyone tell me?
I went on to lose and gain the same 20lbs a few times over the next 3.5 years. and here i am, more determined and serious than before.
After each of my three kids I would drop my baby weight (30-35 lbs.) at first. Then it was like I'd gradually gain that exact amount back, like my body was saying OH NO YOU DON'T. With my first baby I didn't notice much, but with baby 2 & 3 I was painfully aware. I tryed lots of diets and nothing seem to work and honestly I gave up for a while because I was so overwhelmed. I'm in a much better place mentally now and I really believe I can shed these pounds.
My first 20-30lbs (moving me from the high end of a healthy BMI into overweight) was sort of a perfect storm of bad choices. I used to be a college athelete and I couldn't play on the soccer team my senior year and was just so busy that I stopped working out. Then I started dating a guy who just ate 100% junk food and loved taking me out to eat. I eventually broke up with him and met DH but I never really got down to a healthy BMI again even though I lost some weight. Then I got pregnant with DD and gained 65lbs! Some obviously came off initially but then I gained some of that back (that was a pretty slow gain but it wasn't a huge one).
So for me it was *mostly* pretty quick gains over relatively short periods of time when I wasn't paying enough attention to what I eat and working out.
I guess it just goes to show that when I reach maintenance I just really need to keep a close eye on my habits AT ALL TIMES!
I've never NOT been heavy (literally, since puberty I've been big), so to me, it was just what I WAS. Didn't "notice" it one way or another, since it was just my reality.
I was happy with my weight when I was 5'4, 150 lbs at age 20. I could have looked better if I lost 10 lbs, but I felt pretty good.
Then, I got pregnant with my first child. I was about 180 pp & then hovered around 185 - 190 for four years. Then, gained about 10 - 15 lbs with each kid after that.
I have only gained during pregnancy. I have so much trouble losing the baby weight. It's like my body resets at the post partum weight. If I eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm full and am moderately active, I don't gain or lose. When, I start to diet (any diet), once I lose about 10 lbs, I get ravenous and gain the 10 lbs back.
I've never NOT been heavy (literally, since puberty I've been big), so to me, it was just what I WAS. Didn't "notice" it one way or another, since it was just my reality.
Change "puberty" to "infancy" and this is me to a T. There was nothing to compare myself to, I had always been fat. (Even when I was a pretty acceptable size 14 in high school I FELT like I was morbidly obese.)
I did have a huge gain at 18 when I first got married, up to my highest of 267, but I don't remember noticing it while it was happening. Elastic waist pants and the style of huge shirts. . .yeah.
I've always been heavy, since childhood. The thing is I was proportioned well and my fat was evenly distributed throughout my body. I was always the 'cute chunky girl' with the 'pretty face' that would be 'prettier if I just lost some pounds'. Anyway, I got married and a year later we had September 11th and then my brother passed away from AIDS a month later. I think I just went into a deep, deep depression. I gained weight to an extreme. I think I might of got into the 280s. Not sure because I never weighed myself.
I did lose some weight, but not intentionally, I think as my depression got better I stopped eating as much and moving around after I started working again (you can't sit still in daycare lol). But I remained in the 260s until now that I've started my new lifestyle. It's been a change because I think mentally at some point in my life I just resigned myself to being fat and never really challenged it fully until now.
I was always big. Even as an active kid, I was never not heavy. I did lose weight during my freshman year of high school and kept (most of) it off, staying at a reasonable weight until I graduated. Lost weight for college, then gained weight during college. Then yoyoed for the rest of my life. I'd gain 20 lbs, lose 30, then gain it back. So it never really crept up. I'd gain a LOT or lose a LOT at a time.
I noticed, because it was very dramatic. As an adult, I pretty much weighed between 150-170 and was always fighting to get to 135. Then a few weeks after my 30th birthday I took a job that required travel with all weekday meals now in restaurants or fast-food. I gained 50 lbs in less than 6 months and remember thinking that a person couldn't really gain weight that fast without being pregnant. And then over the next 8 months packing on 50 more. Which I then carried around for the next 20 years. Twice before I've lost 30 lbs and slooowly put it back.
How did your weight gain happen?
Some obviously came off initially but then I gained some of that back (that was a pretty slow gain but it wasn't a huge one). 
